


Echoes

by SupernovaSilence



Category: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Movies)
Genre: (Seaplane is pining), Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Seaplane, M/M, Team as Family, The Next Level spoilers, Welcome to the Jungle spoilers, but they're not actually together in any way, mentions of Alex Vreeke/Bethany Walker, more team-focused than all the ship tags make it sound, one sided Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough/Bethany Walker, warning for the main character doubting his senses and being unsure what is real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupernovaSilence/pseuds/SupernovaSilence
Summary: Jumanji fed on Alan Parrish for twenty-six years, but in the end it had to give him back. It always had to give them back, and in between, it starved. But hunger made the game smart. The world around it was so lovely, coming up with new tricks for Jumanji to lure prey in with. Electricity, computers—wonderfully versatile. And now, even when its prey returned to the outside, an echo stayed within the game. Pale, thin, devoid of real nutrients, but still. It was nice to have something sweet to snack on, in between meals.Or, humanity is contagious, and Seaplane might be losing his mind.
Relationships: Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough/Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Never thought I'd write Jumanji fic, much less about the avatars, but somehow this happened. Hopefully people enjoy! (Also, this is my first time posting to ao3, so I apologize if I have tagged badly. Please let me know if there's anything I should add/change.)

He’s just an avatar. He’s not supposed to get bored, or lonely; he’s not supposed to need a life to live. He’s supposed to wait patiently in between games, to give his empty skin to someone else whenever it’s wanted, to take it back once it’s not. He’s not supposed to drown in someone else’s memories and emotions.

Twenty years. That was the problem. It turned out humans were contagious, if you were with them for too long, and twenty years was definitely too long. Twenty years! Seaplane doesn’t even know how long twenty years is—hell, he doesn’t know how long one year was. Jumanji lives in days, weeks, a month at most: a month of preset days, shuffle, repeat. He’d lived twenty years and hadn’t known it, and now he can’t forget.

He'd tried counting days, after the game went back to sleep. Alex had counted, and Alan before him. (Whose skin had Alan worn, and where were they now? Seaplane often wondered. He’d like to talk to them.) He woke each day to find his marks of the day before erased. Finally, he gave up.

Jumanji likes to keep things neat for the next prey.

~~~

He wakes, sobbing in the night. He misses his parents, his friends, his own bed. He is only sixteen and he is so, so lonely.

His parents proudly watched him graduate flight school, and gave him their blessing when he set off on the trip that brought him to this jungle. Seaplane writes them letters every few months, and they write him back. He made some good acquaintances on his travels, although, really, he’s an independent sort; he’s always been fine without true close friends. He’s made his home here, and he is sitting up, sweating in the sticky night heat, shaking with feelings he cannot name, eyes automatically checking the citronella candles are still going even as they prick and burn and spill, _in_ his own bed.

He can’t remember growing up with his parents. Whenever he tries, he gets the same five flashbacks. There was no letter from them this month; maybe there will be next month. The game never gets to next month. Preset, shuffle, repeat. He needs to buy more stamps before _he_ can write to _them_ ; none of the other NPCs sell stamps, because they’re not needed for any of the quests on this level. He only has preset flashbacks of his “good acquaintances”, too; they’re not really friends. (Not like _they_ were, Spencer and Fridge and Martha and Bethany oh god don’t think about Bethany don’t don’t—)

He is twenty-five, and he is so, so lonely.

~~~

He tracks down Bravestone and the others.

They greet him warmly and ask how he’s doing. He tells them he’s been feeling weird ever since their adventure ended. They say yes, adventure takes a toll on you, but the hardships were worth it; they could not have saved Jumanji without his brave assistance.

He asks them if they ever dream about strange things. Memories that aren’t theirs.

“Oh yes, memories can be terrible,” Bravestone replies, and looks dramatically into the distance. “I remember my parents dying when I was just a boy—”

“Yes, but _other_ memories,” Seaplane tries to interrupt, but Bravestone just runs over him. Seaplane has to wait till he finishes his line and try again. “Yes, but _other_ memories. _Weird_ memories.”

“Memories can be terrible,” Bravestone says, looking into the distance. “I remember my parents dying…”

“But you remember us, at least,” Seaplane asks, and he cannot stop his eyes from going to Shelly. “What we went through together.”

“Of course,” Shelly says, smiling at him, and his chest is fire. “We saved Jumanji together.”

“And you saved me. Well, Bethany saved Alex, but…”

Shelly blinks, face blank, then smiles at him again.

“How have you been? We couldn’t have saved Jumanji without your assistance—”

~~~

Bethany’s not in there. None of them are. They weren’t in the game long enough to bleed off on their avatars.

His team. No, Alex’s team. Alex took them all back with him, and Seaplane is left with _his_ team: Bravestone and Ruby and Mouse and Shelly. Paper dolls as empty as he should be. He wishes Alex had taken him away too, this new part of Seaplane that knows how to think and dream and feel.

~~~

He dreams about a party, and wakes up furious. Seaplane has felt righteous anger before, at threats to Jumanji, to the innocent, knows the heat of battle, and frustration at problems in his path. But _this—_

This is anger so deep and twisted he feels sick, and he wants to simply punch and kick and _hurt_ , wants to scream, wants to run and find some deep, cold water, and hold his under until the chill seeps into him and cools him down, because he is not being fair, and he knows it. But there is nowhere cold in this jungle, and the game won’t let him leave for Antarctica, because it wants him here in case a new player shows up.

So he finds a plane (Jumanji has no problems with him flying _now_ , when there’s no point in it) and he just flies. He can’t go far, but he can go fast, and high, and dangerous. He pushes the plane till it’s shaking, chases storms till his arms prickle with brooding lightning, does loops and rolls and dives. The fuel gauge never gets any lower.

He roams over the whole jungle, one edge to another. Whenever he gets too close to a boundary, he finds himself steering the plane back without even thinking about it. Jumanji, steering him. He lets it. He’s a pilot. This is his airspace. This is his world, his life, and that’s okay. He doesn’t need anything more.

It was Alex’s party—Alex’s _last_ party. He knows because Alex got to thinking of it that way, after twenty years.

(Seaplane wonders again, how the game does it. How it can mess with a person’s head so badly, that they can start giving ordinary things proper names, and still don’t notice they’ve been trapped in here for longer than a few days. The Last Party. Outside. Home. Name them, name them, think you’re holding them closer with titles, and Jumanji will take them from you while your energy is distracted in the naming.)

Alex’s Last Party: Seaplane knew all about it, when Alex was him. But he hasn’t really thought about it until now, until it came back to him in dreams. He’s still learning how to think about things that aren’t presets.

He’s thinking about it now, remembering what he never lived, and what he remembers is—

_A blonde girl, winking at Alex while lights swoop and roll around them and music pounds. Alex winks back. At his side, a pretty brunette rolls her eyes but laughs too._

_Alex teases her about being jealous. She teases back; he flirts with every girl, but he could never get a girlfriend._

_“Oh, couldn’t I?”_

_Alex’s arms are around the girl’s waist. She’s soft, and warm, and she smells like some sweet flower. They fall into a dark corner, and the music blasts, blasts, blasts, while they kiss, they_ kiss _—_

And Seaplane wakes up aching and lonely and furious.

Not even because Alex cheated on Bethany—this was a memory, was before he met her. Seaplane understands this, even if his gut doesn’t.

He’s furious because Alex took Bethany away, and he didn’t even need her. He’s had girlfriends before; he’ll have them again. (Much as Seaplane wants Alex to wait for Bethany, wants her—alright, them—to be happy even if he can’t, he knows, logically, it would never work. It’s only for his own sake he imagines somehow, somewhere Outside, they’ve found what he can never have.) No, Seaplane is furious because he is suddenly, viscerally aware that Alex can and has and will kiss lots of girls—love lots of girls.

Seaplane never felt anything until Alex came. Bethany was his first and only love.

~~~

He kisses Shelly. It’s a mistake, and Seaplane knows it, but he does it anyway.

Shelly is soft, and warm, and smells like paper and ink, like the letters Seaplane never gets. Like connection.

Shelly makes a soft, high little sound, adorable and very Bethany-like, and utterly confused. Seaplane pulls away, adjusts and readjusts his jacket. He can’t look at Shelly, can’t look at Bethany’s face and see only blank code.

Shelly asks a preset question, barely applicable to the situation, and Seaplane fumbles for the truth a moment, then gives a preset answer—and who says that’s not the real truth? He slips back into his role easily, like an old, comfortable coat. He stops readjusting his jacket; he stands straighter, head tipped back, cocky grin playing loosely about his mouth, as he and Shelly talk about the same things they’ve talked about a thousand times before. About nothing.

Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough talks with Shelly Oberon, and the echoes of a boy named Alex fade, and fade, and start to die.

~~~

He makes margaritas. He talks to vendors about some items he needs for his plane: fuel, repairs for some parts that were damaged in his last adventure. (What was that again? Seaplane can’t quite remember—oh, well, it doesn’t matter.) He thinks about writing home, but his parents haven’t even replied to his last letter yet, so he can wait a while; he needs more stamps anyway. Maybe next month.

He meets Dr. Bravestone in the bazaar, sees Mouse and Shelly out mapping the jungle and studying local wildlife, runs into Ruby in an alley, coming off a barfight. They talk; Seaplane makes them margaritas. (They’re not even at his camp; how does he have the supplies to make margaritas? Why is he now noticing that he shouldn’t be able to make margaritas? Why does he care?)

He trains: sit-ups, pull-ups, stretches. A pilot has to keep in shape, after all. (When was the last time he flew? Why does the memory of flying bring, there and gone like lightning, a stab of fear, the image of somewhere dark and smelling of metal and gasoline, exhilaration, panic, voices shouting, voices, voices, he knows those voices—) He runs, and runs into Ruby and Bravestone also out training. They talk, and the conversation is as easy as if they’ve had it a thousand times before.

His—friends? Associates? He wants to say _team_ , but they’ve never worked together before. Have they? The others visit his camp. He makes margaritas. They talk. Introduce themselves. Discuss the threat to Jumanji. Seaplane mentions that he needs airplane fuel. Repair parts. Stamps. His tongue stumbles slightly as he asks if Shelly knows where he can buy some. Shelly blinks, blinks again, introduces himself; he’s a cartographer. They discuss the threat to Jumanji. Seaplane makes more margaritas.

He passes them around, leaning into everybody’s space as he hands off the glasses. Shelly smells like ink and paper. Seaplane is suddenly, desperately lonely; for a moment he thinks he might simply fall down with the weight of it. He turns away quickly to make more drinks, feeling his neck flush, his hands shake.

“Seaplane—” someone says. He turns back, and they are all staring at him. Something flickers in the depths of their eyes. Something like sympathy. Like friendship.

And then someone mentions the threat to Jumanji. The others nod, agree, introduce themselves. They all have skills that might be useful if they have to team up.

Their glasses have vanished. Only Seaplane notices; he instantly forgets. He starts making margaritas.

~~~

Drumming—drumming. It invades his dreams, and each time Seaplane wakes up sweating, heart pounding loud in his ears. He doesn’t mind. It drowns out the memory of that drumming.

There are drums in his dreams more often now. It’s always happened, ever since Alex (Did he ever dream before Alex? Who was Alex, again?), but only occasionally, usually in the midst of some deep nightmare. Now it’s often, more and more often, invading every type of dream. He wonders why. What’s changed lately? Does it have something to do with the rumors swirling around Van Pelt? Someone else? Or is it something Seaplane did, maybe a knock on the head in a fight he doesn’t remember?

(Something he did…Something he undid? The drums circle him in the dark of night, and Seaplane finds himself afraid of them spiraling closer, closer, and drawing something else with them.)

Drumming, drumming, he wakes in the night to drumming, and forces himself asleep again only to have the drums follow him down. His dreams fracture, cracks oozing faces and voices and _feelings_ , and he flees until he wakes, chest heaving, heart pounding, eyes stinging. Mind echoing with things he doesn’t understand.

~~~

Humans are tasty—that’s Seaplane’s best guess. That’s why the drumming won’t let him preset in peace.

He’s not sure it’s a good guess, because you probably can’t call any ideas “good” that you come up with in the middle of the night, lying awake, sweating but also shivering, listening to mosquitos whine and things with sharp teeth rustle in the brush, thinking only so you don’t have to go back to sleep and remember that you’re losing your mind. Still, it’s the best he’s got. A game needs players, and if it can’t find them, maybe it makes them. Maybe it lets them make themselves.

Jumanji wants new faces, just like Seaplane does. He supposes that should make him feel some sympathy with the game. It doesn’t. It makes him feel like prey. Jumanji fed on Alex for twenty years, and then got to snack on a whole _bunch_ of people, all at once—

But now they’re gone.

Now they’re gone, Outside, Home, and who knows how long Jumanji will have to wait until it can lure in more. Alex might not be as tasty as a human, but the lingering traces of Alex are still on him, and Jumanji wants to keep nibbling on those as long as it can. A snack in between meals.

That’s Seaplane’s best guess, and he wonders what it says about him—blood and teeth and sentient games. He wonders how Alex is doing. He wonders if Alex remembers Seaplane at all.

Seaplane rolls over and closes his eyes. The glow of citronella-scented flames flicker golden-red against his lids. Mosquitos whine hungrily in the distance. Shelly’s face floats in the darkness of his head, but it’s not Shelly, it’s—

Seaplane shuts out the thought. Shelly—that’s one of the people Nigel mentioned in his letter. Tomorrow, Seaplane will go to the bazaar and see if he can find this Dr. Oberon, and the others. They can discuss the threat to Jumanji, introduce themselves. His name is Jefferson.

As he drifts toward sleep, drums start faintly in his head, like a rumble of thunder somewhere out in the shadowed trees.

~~~

Humans are contagious. Alex infected Seaplane; now he’s infected his own team. Or maybe their own humans infected them. Maybe it doesn’t matter, in the end.

They notice Seaplane’s off, Bravestone and Ruby and all the rest. They don’t have the words to ask him about it, but they confront him anyway, in their own stilted ways. And they are _their_ own ways, not Jumanji’s, and that’s what really breaks Seaplane. He babbles things they don’t understand—that _he_ doesn’t understand—and somewhere in his ramblings Alex starts breaking back into his memories, and then—

It was when—alright, he cried. And he’s not a crier; emotional sure, but a hotshot pilot, a _rascal_ , dammit, a cool rogue, not the type to stumble over words and find each one chokes his throat more, to turn away, trying not to throw the pitcher in his shaking hands because maybe if it shatters he’ll be angry, instead of—of— _this_. His eyes burn and his vision swims, and then something is on his face, and it takes him a moment to realize the something is hot and wet, because they’re in a freaking tropical _jungle_ , everything is hot and wet, and then it takes him a moment more to realize that means tears.

He does throw the pitcher then. It shatters against the nearest tree, and the pieces drop into the heavy brush. A moment later a new one is sitting on Seaplane’s table as if it’s always been there.

He doesn’t feel any better. He doesn’t feel angry. It hits him he doesn’t know what anger feels like—he knows, of course he knows, of course he’s been angry before, of course his cutscenes are real memories—he doesn’t know what _anything_ feels like. Did he ever feel anything, before Alex? As Alex, yes, but even then, that wasn’t _Seaplane_. Has he, has Jefferson McDonough, ever felt anything?

He realizes he’s sitting on the floor when he has to look up at the others. They are crowded around him. Crouching down; he’s on the floor. One of the support pillars is rough against his back.

“Seaplane?” Shelly asks.

He scrubs the back of his hand hastily against his eyes, face burning.

“Yeah, yeah—no. No, Alex. I don’t know.”

They just stare at him, so confused, and he waits for the old familiar lines, grateful that soon he’ll be able to fall back into the script—

“Seaplane?” Shelly asks again.

“Yeah,” he says, clears his throat. “Seaplane McDonough, reporting for duty. You must be the people Nigel mentioned in his lett—”

“What’s wrong?”

The question is innocent enough, but the way Shelly says it is soft and hesitant and _desperate_ beneath the softness.

“You mean besides Van Pelt cursing the whole jungle?” Seaplane says, grinning wryly, heart skidding in his chest. “Cause that’s a lot wrong to start with.”

“No,” and there it is again, the inflection all off. Too confused, too nuanced. Too new. Too human. “What’s wrong with _you_?”

“What?” He half-laughs. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then how do I know something’s wrong?”

And now Shelly really does sound desperate, and Seaplane finally looks him in the eyes, and sees there everything Seaplane’s been feeling when he wakes in the night, haunted by things that aren’t his.

He sighs, and props his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Runs his hands through his hair to buy himself just one more bit of time to answer, and wonders idly if it’s a second or a year, or if they simply don’t have time at all.

He’s opening his mouth, still not sure what he’s going to say, when Mouse asks,

“Where’s Ming?”

~~~

Seaplane doesn’t know how to explain, but he tries anyway. The others can’t discuss anything without falling into preset tracks every other question, but they keep asking anyway. It takes them days and days and days to figure out how to find Ming and Cyclone without Jumanji forcing them back or distracting them (pawns wait at the start, thank you very much), and when they do, their friends just look at them with utterly uncomprehending eyes.

It’s still nice to talk to them.

So that’s what they all do: Seaplane-who’s-almost-Alex, Bravestone and Mouse and Ruby and Shelly, only starting to wake, oblivious Ming and Cyclone. They talk, and train, and hang out. They introduce themselves and discuss the threat to Jumanji, and five of them ignore how the other two talk about Van Pelt in the past tense. Seaplane makes many, many margaritas.

And they tell themselves they are fine.

~~~

Alex comes back. They _all_ come back. Seaplane didn’t know, before, that joy could hurt. He’s learning a lot about emotions, thanks to Alex.

Seaplane wants to hug them all; he wants to kiss Bethany. Alex notices, thinks it’s a stray impulse of his own, squashes it down, embarrassed. Seaplane can’t complain; he doesn’t know if he even wants to.

He’s buried far down in his own consciousness, watching mutely as someone else controls his limbs. He’s never felt so alive. He leaves the jungle; he travels like his letters say he does, meets new people, does new things. He sees a waterfall that heaves green lightning into a magic lake.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Alex says, and Seaplane is saying it too.

Alex is different this time. Older, slower, more confident in himself and more cautious of the world. All the players are, but Alex the most. Having him back is like meeting an old friend after years apart, and finding he’s a stranger now. Alex’s new memories aren’t bothered by the idea, but it makes Seaplane’s head spin. People don’t change like that. People only change in cutscene flashbacks.

People don’t change, not in Jumanji. _Nothing_ changes in Jumanji, or so Seaplane has accepted. Now he’s learning what change could really mean, and it makes him—Excited? Terrified? (He’ll learn, eventually, that one can be both, and more, all at once. Emotions are stranger things than any animal or jewel in Jumanji, and he is still very, very new to their study.)

Alex comes back, and Alex goes again. Seaplane screams inside him at the end. _I don’t want to stop seeing new things! I’m a pilot always stuck at square one! At least kiss Bethany before you leave!_

_Kiss her just once, for me._

But Alex can’t hear Seaplane, and neither can Bethany, and they leave him again. Alex shakes Nigel’s hand, and there is a flash of light—

Seaplane wakes in his hammock, in his hut, at the edge of the jungle, near the bazaar and the transportation shed. He stretches, and yawns, and thinks about the letter he got from that Nigel guy, the letter that brought him to this jungle. It spoke of urgent peril to Jumanji, but all he’s done so far is wait. Oh well; maybe today’ll be the day the others Nigel mentioned arrive.

~~~

He’s not sure how long it takes them all to remember that they can think on their own now. Eventually, he runs into Ruby at the bazaar. They greet each other warmly.

“So what’re you doing here?” Seaplane asks with a smile.

“Looking for nun-chucks,” Ruby replies with a shrug and a smile of her own. “I swear I had some, but I can’t find them. You?”

“Stamps. And more candles, of course.”

They smile at each other a moment, while the bazaar swirls around them, noisy and sweaty and alive, and finally remember they have never met.

Seaplane frowns; Ruby narrows her eyes and tenses for a fight. Seaplane rummages in his pockets for Nigel’s letter. It said something about allies…

“Hey, Seaplane,” Ruby says.

“Yeah?”

“Who the fuck is Martha?”

~~~

They go find Bravestone and Mouse and Shelly, and spend the next several hours wandering the shops, talking and yelling and panicking and getting into fights with people who don’t remember them the next time they circle around to that part of the bazaar. They go into bars and order drinks and never pay. Overhead, the sun never moves.

They don’t figure anything out. They don’t understand anything better than they did before. All they agree on is they like this “team” idea. “Team” is a very nice thing.

So they go find Ming and Milo-Cyclone, and they go together.

Ming is first. Ming is easier, waiting exactly where Jumanji left her. Well, not exactly—she is Ming Fleetfoot after all. They find her at the edge of the Oasis, swearing at a group of camels. The camels (according to Mouse), are swearing back.

“Hey, Ming,” Ruby says.

“Hey.” Ming gives a nod of greeting. “You know how to get these camels moving? I’ve been trying to leave the Oasis for three days now. How do I know you guys again?”

They look at one another, mouths opening and then closing again, fingers fidgeting with the straps on backpacks or gloves, and then they all burst out laughing. Ming glances from person to person.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” she demands.

“Nothing,” Shelly gasps, and they all laugh harder.

And then they go get drunk, and explain to Ming, as best they can, that they don’t know what’s going on and they’re all having identity crises and they think she probably is too, and would she like to all have their crises together? Oh, and they need to go find a talking, flying horse.

In return, Ming tells them that there’s a wanted poster of her, an actual wanted poster, up on at least five different walls in this city, and how come she’s never noticed that before? Why has she just been living here for—how long _has_ she been living here? Too long, is what she figures, to be somewhere where she’s a wanted felon, especially when a pick-pocket can make a living anywhere. She’s been _trying_ to head to new hunting grounds for days, but Switchblade’s men are suddenly patrolling the exits more often, and every truck she tries to hitch a ride on stalls, and they saw how well things went with the camels.

“They don’t like you,” Mouse contributes. “Said you’re being rude.”

“Me? Rude? Never. Sarcastic and manipulative, maybe. But charming. Any of the camels mention charming?”

“They did not. Mentioned some other things I don’t think you want me to repeat.”

“Aw, that’s just _mean_ …”

Milo takes them a little longer. How much longer, they’re not sure. Ming notices it for the first time—that explaining to her how Jumanji wants her here, and sneaking out of the city, and finding the slice of jungle that Venn-diagrams both Ming’s area and the starting avatars’, and tracking down an eighty-year-old man that can fly and really wants to have adventures—that all that _really_ ought to take more than an afternoon.

She notices, and looks at Ruby and Bravestone and Mouse, and they all look at Seaplane, and he looks at Milo, because surely _one_ of them has to have a brain that doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart.

That someone is Milo, but he’s still eighty, and doesn’t know any more about video games than the rest of them. What he does know about is Outside, and accepting life as it comes and changes and pulls you along. About making the most of that life. He says a lot they can’t understand, and they say a lot of nothing back, but, maybe, they are teetering toward a new normal.

And then the drumming starts, and it’s not in Seaplane’s head.

~~~

It was the heater repairman, Spencer explains. And his mom. They did something, and now Jumanji is spilling over into the real world, and half the town’s a jungle, and he had to explain the whole thing to his _mom._ His entire face crinkles up just thinking about _that_ awkward conversation, but Seaplane is hardly listening. How can he pay attention to Spencer, when Bethany is right there?

He knew what she looked like, of course, from Alex’s memories the second time around, but to actually _see_ her—He wants to pull her into his arms and kiss her from the instant they meet, and she just looks at him like he’s a stranger. Or she’ll look at him with fondness, and start to say something, and it’s when she gets to the “Alex” part of the sentence that she remembers she’s addressing the wrong person.

Then she’ll roll her eyes at how _wild_ this whole thing is, and turn to the other Alex, the _real_ Alex, and keep talking, and that’s worse.

All in all, he’s grateful Jumanji keeps them busy, keeps them running. No time to think. No time to feel, or hurt, or remember back when he didn’t know what hurt was, and wonder if he misses it.

There is only running, and fighting ostriches, and hotwiring vehicles decades ahead of any he’s seen, and, once or twice, pulling Bethany swiftly out of harm’s way, and feeling her hand warm in his. Once, yanking her away from a giant snake, and feeling her stumble right into his arms, her chest against his, her hand clinging to his arm, her face so close he can feel her breath, before she pulls away with a flustered _“Thanks”_.

It’s after that that Alex somehow finds a quiet moment to get Seaplane alone and say,

“So. Bethany, huh?”

This is _not_ a conversation Seaplane wants to be having with Alex, Alex with his wife and his kids and his big, walled, mosquito-less house, Alex who got his happy ending. He shrugs his arm out of Alex’s loose grasp, but Alex just walks with him as he rushes to catch up to the others.

“All I’m saying, kiddo, is I know about hopeless relationships.”

The _kiddo_ grates on Seaplane’s brain; the _kiddo_ is all wrong. When did he turn into someone who says kiddo? Except he didn’t, Seaplane didn’t, Alex did, and Seaplane isn’t Alex. Alex is someone else, an outsider, an Outsider, a grown man who looks at Seaplane and sees a confused kid.

Seaplane wants to yell at him, but the problem with being awake is he remembers, and he feels. And, really, the problem is that this is all _Alex’s_ fault.

Twenty years ago, or yesterday, or both, a scared sixteen-year-old fell into Jumanji. Seaplane was the older one then, Alex the kid with no knowledge of how the world worked. Alex—Alex worried about acne and popularity and what he wanted his life to be; this Seaplane dude he was supposed to be? A cocky ace pilot with a cool jacket, who made killer margaritas and had no bedtime? Yeah, that sounded better. Sounded like someone who was never scared or lonely.

Alex leaned on Seaplane then, or the idea of Seaplane. Maybe, maybe, Seaplane can let himself lean on Alex now.

So he lets Alex call him kiddo. He lets himself stammer and fumble his way past preset phrases and try to explain what Alex has done to him. He lets Alex clap him on the shoulder and tell him no one understands life, not even humans, but it’s easier with friends. And even though they’ll hopefully never meet again, Alex would like it if Seaplane considered him one.

And when it’s all over, and they’ve quieted Jumanji’s hunger once again, Seaplane lets himself look Bethany in the eye, and smile, and say it was really nice to meet her properly. He lets himself kiss her on the cheek, very quickly, and then he turns and goes home.

~~~

Shelly finds him.

Seaplane still has nightmares of the transportation shed, still wakes up missing parents that aren’t his, still itches for change, but he’s settling. They all are, poking at their world, testing the rules Jumanji has given them, waking slowly into their own minds. The drums are quiet, sated for now. Seaplane thought things were going alright, but now Shelly is standing in front of his hut, hands on his hips, glaring.

“Shelly? Something wrong? Is it Van Pelt?”

But Seaplane knows the others would be here if it was.

“It’s you,” Shelly says, still glaring. “You’re all wrong, and my head’s all wrong, and—and _that_ was wrong!”

“Uh, what was?”

Shelly just stands there, visibly working through rote phrases. Seaplane’s nerves jangle (he has never been the patient sort), but he forces himself to wait silently. Saying new words is hard.

Finally, Shelly just gives up, marches over to Seaplane, and presses his lips very hard against Seaplane’s. Then he steps back, crosses his arms, and goes back to glaring.

Seaplane’s heart thuds hard against his ribs, and he has absolutely no words, new or otherwise.

“You shouldn’t have kissed Bethany. It’s making me feel weird, and Bravestone says it’s jealousy, which is ridiculous, because I’m the team genius, okay? I’m the smart guy, not the emotions guy. And I know everything, but I don’t know what’s wrong with my head, and-and my insides, and—you shouldn’t have done it.”

Something flickers in Seaplane’s chest. It’s not the same as what he feels for Bethany; that’s pure and strong and clear, even when it hurts, and this is soft and shy and confused. But it’s warm. And it’s new, it’s change.

It’s his, all his, nothing to do with Alex.

So he finds himself smiling as he steps forward, and takes Shelly’s hand. The cartographer smells like ink and paper. Like maps: art and new horizons. Like connection.

“I’m still figuring things out, okay?” Seaplane says, and then, “Would it be wrong if I kissed you?”

“Yes, if you’re looking for Bethany.”

“I’m—” Seaplane swallows, shakes his head. “I’m not. Not anymore. I think maybe I’m looking for me?”

“Hmph. Well. I’m very good with maps, you know, if you’re lost. I’m a cartographer.”

“I’m a pilot. Seaplane McDonough.”

“Sheldon Oberon. My friends call me Shelly.”

“Can I?”

“Oh, please do.”

Seaplane says softly, “And can I kiss you?”

A small smile is lighting about Shelly’s mouth now, and it looks much the way the thing in Seaplane’s chest feels—soft and shy and confused, and warm.

“I—yes, alright. If you like.”

So Seaplane does.

~~~

He’s still an NPC. He still follows pre-coded patterns, and forgets things he’s just done or said, and has the same conversations he’s had a thousand times.

But they’re not bad conversations, really.

He has new ones, too, with new people he has known all his life. They’re all figuring this out together, and that’s one thing Seaplane knows even when he can’t remember how to think on his own: they’re a team. His team. _His_ team.

So, really, they’re going to be just fine.


End file.
